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 the name came to be lost.” It is clear that, from the existence of an Ishmaelite tribe משּׂא, there does not necessarily follow a similar name given to a region. The conj. ממּשּׂא, for המשּׂא (vid., Herzog's Encycl. xiv. 702), has this against it, that although it is good Heb., it directly leads to this conclusion (e.g., 2Sa 23:20, 2Sa 23:29, cf. 1Ki 17:1). Less objectionable is Bunsen's and Böttcher's המּשּׂאי. But perhaps המשׂא may also have the same signification; far rather at least this than that which Malbim, after השּׂר המשּׂא, 1Ch 15:27, introduced with the lxx ἄρχων τῶν ᾠδῶν: “We ought then to compare 2Sa 23:24, דודו בּית לחם, a connection in which, after the analogy of such Arabic connections as ḳaysu'aylana, Kais of the tribe of ‘Ailân (Ibn Coteiba, 13 and 83), or Ma'nu Ṭayyin, Ma'n of the tribe of Tay, i.e., Ma'n belonging to this tribe, as distinguished from other men and families of this name (Schol. Hamasae 144. 3), בית לחם is thought of as genit” (Mühlau). That בית לחם (instead of בּית הלּחמי) is easily changed, with Thenius and Wellhausen, after 1Ch 11:26, into מבּית לחם, and in itself it is not altogether homogeneous, because without the article. Yet it may be supposed that instead of משׂא, on account of the appelat. of the proper name (the lifting up, elatio), the word המשׂא might be also employed. And since בן־יקה, along with אגור, forms, as it were, one compositum, and does not at all destroy the regulating force of אגור, the expression is certainly, after the Arabic usus loq., to be thus explained: The words of Agur the son of Jakeh, of the tribe (the country) of Massa. The second line of this verse, as it is punctuated, is to be rendered: The saying of the man to Ithîel, to Ithîel and Uchal, not Ukkal; for, since Athias and van der Hooght, the incorrect form ואכּל has become current. J. H. Michaelis has the right form of the word ואכל. Thus, with כ raphatum, it is to be read after the Masora, for it adds to this word the remark לית וחסר,